REQUESTING CONGRESS TO PROPOSE
AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO PERMIT CONGRESS AND
THE STATES TO REGULATE THE EXPENDITURE OF FUNDS BY CORPORATIONS ENGAGING IN
POLITICAL SPEECH.

WHEREAS, free speech is a right exclusive to
natural persons, recognized and protected by the First Amendment of the
Constitution of the United States (U.S.); and

WHEREAS, corporations are not natural persons,
but rather legal entities granted conditional rights by society through the
legislative deliberations of Congress and the States; and

WHEREAS, the legislature of the State of Hawaii
has grave concerns regarding the implications of the Supreme Court of the U.S.'
decision in its five to four ruling in Citizens United v. Federal ElectionsCommission; and

WHEREAS, this decision threatens to invalidate
the legislative deliberations of Congress and the States to restrict the
influence of corporate power on the political system; and

WHEREAS,
the opinion of the four dissenting justices noted that corporations have
certain privileges not enjoyed by natural persons, such as limited liability,
perpetual life, and favorable treatment of their accumulation and distribution
of assets, which financially enables them to overwhelm individual, natural
persons in the political process; and

WHEREAS, a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court
cannot be overturned by legislation; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives
of the Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, the Senate concurring,
that the Legislature respectfully requests that the U.S. Congress propose and
send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to clarify the
distinction between the rights of natural persons and the rights of
corporations, thereby preserving the power of Congress and the States to place
limits on the ability of corporations to influence the outcome of elections
through political expenditures; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certifies copies of
this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President and Vice President
of the United States, to the Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives, and to Hawaii's Congressional Delegation.